That is the headline of a June 4 opinion column in The Guardian newspaper written by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.
When the US was attacked during the second world war no one asked, “Can we afford to fight the war?” It was an existential matter. We could not afford not to fight it. The same goes for the climate crisis.
How to start? There is a saying, when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.
That means no new pipelines, no new oil tankers, no airport expansions, no new Carbon-fueled electric generation facilities, including those powered by natural gas.
We can not use even all of the existing “proven reserves” of oil so there is no point in looking for more. That means no more exploratory wells, no more government handouts leases to extractive industries. And a stop to all subsidies for such behavior. Zero them out in the next budget.
All this has to start in the next congressional session. We need a House Speaker who will vigorously push this agenda. We need a Senate that will consider them and approve. We need a President who will sign the bills. We need an honest education campaign to show the public what is going on and why this is necessary.
It’s time to stop talking about it, and to act. On April 22, Greta Thunberg linked to this chart: